hecy, Brun."

Brun gave himself a whisky-and-soda. "No idea you were such a talker,
Christopher.... But I'm right all the same."

He held up his glass.

"Here's to the Tiger in the next generation." He drank, then held it up
again. "And here," he cried, "to the memory of the last Great lady in
England!"

III

When Brim had gone it seemed that he had left that last toast of his in
the air behind him.

Christopher was haunted by the thought of the Duchess, he felt her with
him in the room; she stirred him to restlessness so that at last,
desperately, he took his hat and went out.

His steps took him, round the corner, to Portland Place; here all was
very quiet, a few cabs in the middle of the street, a few lights in the
windows, the silver field of stars, in the distance the sky golden,
fired now and again into life as a rocket rose shielding beneath its
glow all that stirring multitude. Sounds rose--a cry, a shout,
singing--then died down again.

He was outside No. 104. He thought that he would ring and see whether
Mrs. Newton were in; perhaps she had gone to bed, it was after eleven,
but, if she were there, he would take one last look at the Portrait
before it was packed up and sent down to Beaminster.

Mrs. Newton unbolted the door and smiled when she saw him--"I was just
going to bed--There's only myself and Louisa here--and the watchman."

"I won't keep you, Mrs. Newton," he said. "The fancy just took me to
look at some of the pictures once more before they're packed up. Lady
Seddon told me that a good many of them were to be packed up to-morrow;
they won't look quite the same at Beaminster."

"No, that they won't, sir," said Mrs. Newton. "I shall miss the old
house. Just to think of the years; and now, all of us scattered!"

She lit a lamp for him and he went up the stone staircase, found the
long drawing-room, and there, on the farther wall, the Portrait.

The furniture, shrouded in brown holland, waited like ghostly watchers
on every side of him. The huge house, always a place of strange silences
and vast disturbances, multiplied now in its long mirrors and its air of
cold suspense as though it were waiting for something to happen, showed
its recognition of death and death's consequences.

But the Portrait was alive! As he held the lamp up to it the face leapt
into agitation, the eyes were bent once again sharply upon him, the
mouth curved to speak, the black silk rustled against the chair.

A